... of buying a big monitor and high resolution webcam/microphone for these people?!

$500,000?! That better include a full 20 years of support and free upgrades\repairs along with- at a minimum- native-HD 1080p cameras\screens. And a good number of wireless tie-clip microphones rather than a big omnidirectional one. And a bloody quick dedicated internet connection.

If not, don't the people who buy this stuff realise that their kids are quite possibly doing it already to talk to their friends over MSN etc?! MS Office Communicator even supports it if they need a more "businessy" looking one- and the half-million dollars saved should go some way to updating their network infrastructure to handle the massive amount of video content for a good few VCs going on simultaneously too.

I'm off to start a VC with a co-worker. From my desk. For free.